Aberrant wound healing and TGF-beta production in the autoimmune-prone MRL/+ mouse

Wound healing is a complex process that, involves inflammation, apoptosis, growth, and tissue remodeling. The autoimmune-prone inbred mouse strain MRL /+ manifests accelerated and extensive healing to ear punch wounds, suggest ing a Pink between immune defects and wound healing. Prior studies with lup us-prone mice have shown that hematopoietic cells of lupus-prone strains ca n transfer disease to otherwise non-autoimmune-prone recipients. In this st udy we performed reciprocal bone marrow transfers between MRL and the contr ol strain B10.BR and found that radioresistant MRL/+ host cells, rather tha n hematopoietic cells, are required for the healing response. Ww have also made the novel observations that, compared to normal controls, MRL/+ hemato poietic cells overproduce TGF-beta 1 and manifest impaired inflammatory res ponses to lipopolysaccharide challenge. These features suggest that the abe rrant wound healing phenotype of MRL mice is independent of their propensit y to develop autoimmunity. (C) 1999 Academic Press.